Well we went to the temple yesterday! How wonderful it was to be there. It was a beautiful day, no bad weather. Traffic was bad, but we were just patient as we drove through it. We were able to meet my Father and Bev there and had an enjoyable time visiting and shopping. Nicole had a good time and enjoyed HER day. We were able to find her shoes and some clothes. Actually able to find somemore skirts the right length. We went to the LLBean store in Freeport on our way back. That is like the biggest one store I have ever seen, and it was in about 3 buildings. We only went to one. If I have a rich Uncle Penny Bags out there that would be the perfect present, an LLBean gift certificate! We then went around the corner and there was a Friendly's. I know nothing about Friendly's (it is ice cream, but the food was really good), but a friend said it was good. So we stopped there and ate on the way home. We had 50's yesterday in Boston and came home to 5 degrees and negative with the wind chill. Nephi got out there and snow blowed so we could get in the house. One day I will get to try out my cross country skis. But they say that going with negative temps is not good, so I am following the proffesionals. :)

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Snow.... FINALLY. We got 3 inches Monday, now we will just wait to see what happens next. I have my cross country skis and Jennifer is wanting to go everyday. So this will be interesting. It will be good once we can get out. Well we are now into the month of December. Crazy... this year has just flown by. We have definitely had our ups and downs this year. We are steadily getting Nicole ready for January. We are going to the Temple in two weeks. Can't wait to see family. Lets not let this season pass us so quickly that we don't stop and smell those cinnamon pine cones!! Don't let the crazy stuff bog us down. Remember the reason for this wonderful season. Love to all.

Well not too much exciting going on here. Just working and functioning. Colds have hit the kids, I just try to keep my distance and plug forward. Nephi has been working hard on a few papers for a couple of his classes. Nicole is just working and trying to get all the reading done that she needs to. We are planning a trip to the temple December 15. Nicole and Nephi are both taking the temple prep classes, and I was able to give the primary president sad eyes and so I have helpers for the Sunday School hour with Music time. That way I can attend the class with them. It's fun. My Father and Bev are able to come from Washington and meet us in Boston, and my Nephew Cary and his wife are hoping to be there as well. Cary and Kara only live about an hour from Boston so we are so excited that there will be family there. Oh you know.... Tickets into Boston on Southwest are only running $99 one way :) hint, hint...wink, wink. Mom is coming in January to be here for Nicole's last Sunday here. Exciting times ahead. Hope this finds every well. We love and miss all of you out there. Love to all.

Well it's winter in Maine! These are pictures of this morning that Terry took up in Van Buren. The first one is of a moose and actually there was another picture of two of them but it was a little blurry. Terry came home this morning from work and told me he took some good pictures for the blog. So see Tery does help out with the blog even if he doesn't type the words. We did get 6 inches of snow yesterday evening. It was supposed to warm up today, but so far it's all still here. Well it's almost time for me to go to work and I should probably comb my hair and look a little more presentable. Love to all

This is the before

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

And this other is the after.

Yesterday I looked out at our vast sea of leaves and wondered if the city came around and gathered the leaves that we rake. So I was going to call today and see what the schedule was and we would rake tomorrow. Well Terry came home and said, "Did you call them? They are at the end of the street!" So we went outside and began raking. Boy was there a lot of leaves. The before does no justice to really how many leaves there were. I was going to take a picture of the pile, but they pulled up in front of our house with this BIG vaccuum and started taking care of all the leaves. There was a couple of guys that helped Terry over by the mail box and Nephi and I had this HUGE bag from the pellets that we were loading about 7 loads of leaves in from the back yard, and that was only from 3 trees. Oh my goodness, it would have been insane if there was more trees. And as it happened when we were up on the roof shoveling snow back in February, Nicole was at work and missed the whole thing! I guess this is just me getting ready for her not being here. But we really could have used her help!

Terry just pointed out that maybe I should have written out what the MTC stands for because some of you that are reading our post may not know what it means. Missionary Training Center. Here is a link that gives some information. They explain it better than I could. http://www.mtc.byu.edu/themtc.htm Here is also a picture.

Well life is moving forward. We went Tuesday morning and got Nicole's passport going. She will meet with the Bishop this weekend to get her acceptance letter done and sent off. I look at the counter and it says 3 months and that seems like so far away, but I know that it will be here before we know it. Right now we are planning trip to Boston for the Temple probably middle of December. We are needing to work around everyone's schedules. Nephi is out of school about December 12 so that helps with flexability. I wish everyone could be involved in the whole process, but I know distance and timing plays into everything. We are not going to be able to go with Nicole to Provo. They don't let you go into the MTC anymore anyway. You leave them at the curb and say goodbye, so we figured we could do that in Bangor at the airport!

NICOLE IS GOING TO THE CANADA CALGARY MISSION! REPORTING TO THE MTC ON JANUARY 20, 2010. MORE INFO TO FOLLOW, JUST TRYING TO MAKE SURE WE GET THE INFO TO EVERYONE!

Yes we still are here!

Well this won't be very long, it's getting late.

I started so strong in keeping updates, but life moves on sometimes so quickly. The summer here in Maine has been beautiful. We had maybe two weeks of "hot" weather. That means in the 80's. Which I know those of you in the south would consider that to be a cool summer day, here in Maine if it's 86 degrees with lets say 80% humidity it's a killer day! We have no a/c so it can be pretty insainly HOT! But luckily we are now heading towards the beautiful fall weather. Right now it's 53 degrees and it was a nice sunny day.

Nicole and I went to Boston last week and enjoyed a couple of days away from work. We went to see the Old North Bridge where the Minute Men fought the British. Where the "Shot heard round the world" happened. We also went to Sleepy Hollow Cemetary and saw the grave sites of Emerson, Hawthorn, the Abbotts and Thoreau. I kinda wish we would have been able to get into Boston, but it was during the day and didn't want to deal with traffic. We went to the temple and then the next day we went shopping on our way home. Nicole bought some new clothes. It was a wonderful trip and now we kinda know the lay of the land when we go back. Which hopefully will happen real soon.

Well I guess I'm off for now. I hope to write again soon. Hope everyone out there is ciber world is good. Love to all

I know it's been a while since I updated anyone on our family activities. Sorry, I'm a slacker. Well so here we go. This is a picture of my Nephew's two oldest boys. That would make me a Great Aunt? I also told someone I was a grandma once removed, that sounded a little better. Charlotte I will only try and help since we are now on the same side of the country!! :) They moved to Concord just a month ago, and that is only about 6 1/2 hours from us, so Terry and I went and visited them the past couple of days. It was a great visit. So now we have family for holidays!!
We traveled the state of Maine and learned where some really cool little towns are.
We tried to find a light house and only got a picture of one of those and it was inland! Oh well there will always be another trip.
On the way back we checked out a couple of drop zones for Terry, so he's happy now, and then got back last night just in time to go and see Harry Potter.

Nicole and Nephi are just working away. Nicole should be close to getting her mission papers finalized within a few weeks. She is working two jobs trying to save as much money as possible. Nephi is trying to get money lined up for the next semester.

Other than that I guess we are pretty boring people. Hope this finds every well. We love and miss all.

Here are a couple of pictures of Nicole's hair.

Well ok, I give... are we almost into May? Time flies when your busy!! Well this month has brought and increase of age for both myself and Nicole. Nicole is at a mile stone and I'm just happy to have made another year :) She took me out for lunch on my birthday and I took her out for hers, fair trade I guess. Nicole also got her hair done. It looks so awesome! I guess that would be a clue to me to post a picture.... but alas Nicole has a picture on her camera, not on my computer or her face book (I went and checked!) Ok, that's for next post. Terry is just working and of course trying to get his motorcycle perfectly clean for the 70 degree weather so he can ride like the wind. Nephi got a new helment, a full face helment so he is enjoying riding better. He's been hit in the face a few too many times by bugs. Nephi is on his last 3 weeks of school until summer break. He is working at Bonanza, and is planning a trip to Alpine the end of May for graduation. He has a lot of friends graduating. Nicole is working still at Lowe's and has just got another job where I work being a hostess in the resturant. She is still working on things for the mission so the papers can be sent in, keep those prayers coming. I am working usually 4 days a week which makes nice three day weekends (Mon, Tues Wed weekends). Nicole and I enjoyed going and being a part of a Tea Party here in Caribou. We only had about 20 people there, but it was good. Well I best be off to bed. It's late and the old eye balls are getting very sweepy!! Love to all

IT'S SNOWING!!!! Yesterday it was melting! TODAY IT'S SNOWING!!! So I thought I would share.....9:00 a.m.

Oh my gosh!! Has it honestly been a month since I posted? This has been a busy month. I started a new job the end of February. My last day at Burrell's was March 6, and I started full time at Caribou Inn & Convention Center. That last week at Burrell's I worked 68 hours between there and CICC. Since then I have been working from 2-11 four days a week. It's been good. Terry and I have actually had day's off togeter, so that's been nice. I meet new people each day, and sometimes see some everyweek coming in for business or those that come to the Spa everyday. I just need to learn to juggle 4 phone calls for reservations, 2 check in's, and 8 people coming into the Spa at the same time and I should have it. Between 3-6 it is pretty insane. But I love it. It's a lot of fun.

Terry is getting ready to go to Artisia, New Mexico for training. He wants to teach driving at the Academy. He wants to teach them how to drive fast!!!

Nicole has finally got all the paper work done for her mission. We are now in the waiting game. We have been told we should know something within about 3 weeks. We will make an anouncement once we find out.

Nephi has Spring Break next week, and that was after Winter Break last month?!? He is finally starting a new job today, he will be working at Bonanza.

So that's an update. Snow is melting, even though right now it is snowing! If it was 5 degrees warmer it would be rain, so I'm greatful it is snow. Hope everyone is doing good. Love to all!!

Happy Saturday!!! Yes, it's a great day.

Life in Maine is well....snowy! We had a little more snow this week, I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 inches. It started Thursday morning about 7 and continued until Friday morning.

Well as the world goes and the country seems to be spinning out of control, I went to work on Wednesday and all seemed right in the world, but then they called everyone together and said that they were going to have to let some employees go. My head began to spin, I knew I had only had this job for a little over a month, so my days were numbered. But the blessing came that all in our department were safe. They said that we were the heart of the company and without us no one else would have a job and to keep up the good work. But each day a newspaper ends it's contract with us and that gets scary. I still feel that they could decide one day that they need to cut back. All you can do is go to work each day and do the best Thursday afternoon I had a call from a place I put an application in back in December wanting an interview, and then another place I applied to is also seeking an Assistant Manager and I should hear from them as well. So we'll see. I know that what ever works out will be a blessing from the Lord. I am greatful to have a job. Nephi did finally talk to someone at Bonanza and hopefully will have something worked out in about a week or so.

Nicole is still waiting to have her final interview for the Mission, so we will let all know as soon as we do.

Well our love to all, and keep the emails coming. We really enjoy hearing from everyone.

Love Laura

Well, just a short update to let everyone know that we are doing good. We haven't had much snow in the past couple of weeks, but you'll see by the pictures that we had to take advantage of that and clear the snow off the roof of the house. There was probably about 3 feet of snow up there, and it took Terry, Nephi and I about 4 hours to shovel it all off. Pretty crazy!! I was so frozen Nicole had to help get my boots off my feet and the bottom of the leg of my pants around my feet, because there was so much snow pasted to the bottom. Nicole was at work all morning, so she got to get all the snow off the portch that came off the roof :)

Nicole gave her mission papers to the Bishop on Sunday, so we should be hearing soon from the Stake President for that interview and then we will be waiting.

Terry had snow mobile training the other day. He said it was a lot of fun, but was a little sore from digging out of a few soft snow banks. I am enjoying the challenge of trying to beat my production every day at my work. We are required to scan 280 pages an hour. I have actually scanned 324 pages an hour a few days, but then there is always a slow day. Nephi is still looking for a job, but talked to a guy today at school who's Mom owns Bonanza and he thinks she will be calling in a few days. Nicole is actually seeing if she can round up another job to help her gather mission money.

Well that is about all for now. Here is a shoutout to those great 4 missionaries here in our Ward. They have dubbed every Tuesday as Taco Tuesday, and last night was our last one with these 4. Two of them will be transfered this week. They are Elders Falter, Hitchcock, Michaelis, and Spencer. You guys are great.

Love to all, Laura

OK, so I guess once every 15 days is going to be it... I get home from work and get busy with dinner or something and forget what day it is, and then I have to be in bed by around 9 because I have to be at work by 6 a.m. I know, NO EXCUSES!!!

Life is pretty good. Nephi is enjoying school. He goes Monday thru Thursday and usually stays in between classes to save a little gas and he is able to get his work done while he is there. He takes his lap top and gets online for a little bit as well, so it's not too bad. He is in charge of picking me up on Wednesday because he gets out of class about 30 minutes before I get done with work. Laura and work is OK. Black newspaper print on the hands is old, but ya know...it's a job, and it will help support Nicole and then Nephi on a mission. Nicole is muddling through Lowe's, She's on the count down. She got her physical and dental done this past week so the paper work for the Mission is almost complete. She is planning on middle to end of April. It will be here before we know it. It's exciting as well as a little scary!! Terry is sitting in his recliner with his feet up, he is at the end of his days off and only about 35 minutes from getting ready, but he only works tonight then changes shifts to days.

We all went snow skiing last week. Well Laura was tricked into going!! Not really, I found the website on my computer, left there on purpose I think!! It was free lift tickets and we only had to pay 10 dollars a piece for rental. I thought ok, best time to try. Well I only fell three times, and after about the 7th time down the little hill in front of the shop, I was feeling pretty good. That was until someone had to burst my bubble and tell me that wasn't the bunny hill!!! That's why you need the lift ticket, well duh!! Needless to say the only one who went down the "bunny hill" was Nephi. He was the only one brave enough to do it without poles!! Yes we were learning without poles. Some say that's crazy, but others say it's better that way so you can learn to keep your balance.

We got about another 16+ inches of snow night before last. This is a picture of Terry standing in the driveway. It's not too bad once you move the snow out of the way. The roads stay clear. Even that morning at 5:30 after the 16 inches the roads were clear, it was just my driveway :( Terry snowblowed by 3 hours to finish the driveway.

We are good.....love to all!! XOXOXO

Hello to all. Well it's been a few weeks, sorry about that. I am actually at the end of my first week at work. I am working at a BurrellsLuce. I check in, scan, and file newspapers from all around the New England states. It's pretty good, it'll work, and help with missions. I have had to get up at 5 a.m. every morning in order to be at work by 6. I work 6 till 2:30. Which is a pretty good schedule. Nicole was able to change her hours as well so we are able to go into work together. She works Tuesday thru Saturday and I work Monday thru Friday, so we each have a day by ourselves, but it works. Nephi started school this week as well, so life has been a little busy. Terry decided his Border Patrol truck needed new tires and rims the other night at work when he hit a slick spot on the road and hit a guard rail, he's o.k. and the truck can be fixed, just lots of paperwork. He was blessed and we thanked Nephi for his good prayer the night before! Boddy has been in the lap of luxery. He has a blanket on the floor and all his favorite toys around him, every so often Sadie thinks she needs to lay right behind him as well. It has been very, very cold. Did I say VERY? Tonight it will be around -30. Just a little chilly. A couple of days ago it warmed up to 25, felt like a heat wave.

Hope everyone is well. We miss everyone. Love to all. US